


three strikes you're out

by prufrock



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America: Civil War (Movie) - Fandom
Genre: Amputation, Angst, Baseball, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Childhood Memories, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Gen, Hugs, Male Friendship, Men Crying, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 12:06:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6803350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prufrock/pseuds/prufrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing scene from Civil War, in which very little is okay but there is a much-needed hug.</p>
            </blockquote>





	three strikes you're out

**Author's Note:**

> I liked Civil War very much and I am extremely emotional about the events of this film but I also have a pulse so I wanted Steve to hug Bucky. That is the reason for this fic. I'm a simple man with simple needs and this is a very very simple fic.

When he was nine years old, Steve Rogers, buoyed by the dizzying confidence of clear nostrils and a full stomach, attempted to join a stickball game. Rising from his customary position on the secure steps of Mr. Hearne’s shop into the triumphant July sunshine, he stepped up to the chalked wall several inches taller than usual and reasonably certain that his solemn squint reminded everyone present of Dazzy Vance in a moment of masterful concentration rather than an underweight third grader trying to remember the rules of the game.

Whether this was true or not, he never got a chance to ask, because the pitcher’s first ball connected mysteriously with his temple and Steve’s visions of glory were rapidly replaced with a bright, insistent blurb shimmering in the corner of his eye in time with the throbbing of his skull. The weird spot lingered in his vision for the better part of a week, and Ma made him lie down inside every afternoon to rest his head and contemplate the death of his baseball career.

He should have learned then that things were never going to turn out the way he expected.

It’s hard this time, because he doesn’t know what he did expect—Bucky ecstatic and grateful as when Steve let him in out of the snow that New Year’s he lost his key; Bucky empty and primed to kill; Bucky smacking him on the head, asking why it took him so long. Whoever he was looking for, it’s none of them he gets: he ends up in a mostly empty apartment in Romania, and Bucky knows him and doesn’t seem to care, and it’s all cut short anyway when the door breaks in and the world shifts sideways into perpetual breathless motion. Bucky’s gone, and then he’s trapped, and then he’s a machine in a red shirt and it’s everyone’s job to stop him the way they would a rogue missile, the same way they’d blast away anything that malfunctioned so spectacularly as Steve’s lost best friend, who learned about him in a museum and doesn’t have anything more to say about that.

And then he’s back again, promising Steve he knows him, walking at Steve’s side into battle like it’s 1944 again and the past’s come back to meet them, except that this Bucky doesn’t ask how Steve found him; it just happened, like everything else. Steve still hasn’t learned his lesson, but Bucky’s been knocked down too many times to be surprised when it happens again.

They’re in a helicopter over the Arctic, and Steve’s nose is bleeding and his ribs are cracked and he can see the shimmering blob behind his eyes again, throbbing in time with the pain as his skull knits itself together again cell by crackling cell. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Bucky, curled on his side with a makeshift bandage wrapped helplessly around the burnt, aborted machinery of his stump. Steve thought he was asleep, or resting at least, but as he squints around the blistering pain in his head he realizes he’s not: Bucky’s eyes are wide, staring blankly across the chopper at something on the wall behind Steve.

He turns to look at bare metal, and realizes the _something_ is him.

“Hey,” he says, and feels nine again at the unexpected rasp in his throat; the word comes out quieter than he’d intended. In the close quarters of the helicopter, he can hear Bucky breathe faster. “Hey,” he repeats, intelligently. Bucky always told the girls Steve was an artist with words.

Bucky doesn’t move, barely breathes, but something’s different in his face. This isn’t the empty apartment in Bucharest; he’s crying, Steve realizes, even though it’s not clear Bucky knows that himself till he squeezes his eyes shut and tries to wrestle his good arm out from under him to wipe at his face. It’s clumsy, and the stretcher he’s on is regrettably narrow, and in the end Steve has to leap out of his own seat to catch Bucky before he tips himself over onto the hard floor.

“Sorry,” Bucky grunts, and Steve says “Don’t mention it,” like they’re both teenagers again and it’s Steve helping Bucky sit up to breathe instead of the other way around.

But Bucky’s still crying, sucking in air on every angry sob like he doesn’t know how to stop, and the hollow pain that opened in Steve’s stomach when Bucky said his name in Bucharest knots into a cold lump, climbing up his throat. This is all wrong, and probably all his fault, but this time it’s Bucky who’s flat on his back because Steve thought he was David and not Goliath, the stupid giant so desperate to fight he thinks he can’t lose.

He’s about to apologize, to let go of Bucky and let someone who doesn’t break what he touches do the healing here, when Bucky shifts suddenly, hitching his body awkwardly around so he’s twisted towards Steve and his one good arm can hook around Steve’s neck; he squeezes hard, dragging himself closer, his face crushed unceremoniously into Steve’s shoulder. Steve freezes, waiting to see what Bucky’s trying to do, but he stays just like that, face hidden, his arm dangerously tense around Steve’s neck.

“We’re going home,” he says lamely, moving one arm around Bucky’s back to hold him up, feeling the shudder of each breath so distinct it’s surprising. He doesn’t expect a response, but Bucky nods, arm tightening around Steve’s neck, his fingers scrabbling fruitlessly for a grip in the tight fabric of his uniform.

“Hey,” Steve says again, “hey, Bucky, don’t cry.” He’s ten years old, and Bucky’s grandpa just died, and they’re sitting on the fire escape together while the sun goes down. He’s twenty-four and they’re hiding in the forest and Bucky can’t stop whispering his serial number into the quiet. He’s a hundred years old, and he never learns.

Bucky chokes into Steve’s neck and Steve shifts, taking the strain off Bucky’s shaking back and his own dislocated shoulder. Bucky’s own voice is running through his head, a hundred years away and scratchy with puberty, and Steve repeats what he remembers Bucky telling him through a haze of pneumonia and fear: _it’s okay, you’re okay, I gotcha, you’re gonna be fine._

“I’m not going anywhere,” he tells him, and Bucky’s arm clenches like a vice, cutting off Steve’s air supply for a few seconds.

“Don’t,” he grates out in the angry voice he used when they were kids and Steve pretended to dive off the bridge—angry at Steve and angry at himself for being so scared—Steve shakes his head, feeling stupid laughter bubble up in his chest.

“Not a chance.”

 


End file.
